By John Helmer, Moscow Victor Vekselberg won a major UK High Court action on Friday, and the presiding judge, Justice Guy Newey, has ordered that he should get his money’s worth returned. No ruling of fraud was allowed. The amount may turn out to be less than Vekselberg has spent on lawyers and experts over […]

By John Helmer, Moscow There is a unique protection in the Ontario Business Corporations Act which may have Alexei Mordashov’s name written all over it. It’s called the oppression remedy. What this does is to allow minority shareholders to go to court to challenge the votes and decisions of majority or control shareholders in a […]

By John Helmer, Moscow It seems that this August Suleiman Kerimov will be holidaying with his Mother, as in Motherland. A recent yachting news bulletin from the port of Bergen, Norway, reports that Kerimov’s motor yacht is “docked next to Bryggen, in walking distance to most of the attractions in the center of Bergen. The […]

By John Helmer, Moscow Once upon a time, Oleg Deripaska was the protégé of Mikhail Chernoy (Michael Cherney). In that relationship, Cherney, the older, taller one, called Deripaska, the younger, shorter one, Zaichik (“hare”). When he grew up, Cherney made him his business partner. In the year 2000, the man who is today Deripaska’s principal […]

By John Helmer, Moscow Tall stories told by newspapers and their reporters generally don’t start wars. But they do justify them in advance. Afterwards they protect the officials who start them from being prosecuted for war crimes. On August 5, 1964, there was no truth in President Lyndon Johnson’s claim – reported by every major […]

By John Helmer, Moscow You don’t have to be Mr Plod to suspect that Noddy isn’t playing fair. More than half the Canadians who hold shares in High River Gold (HRG:CN), and who have resisted Alexei Mordashov’s buyout offers in the past, think he’s low-balling them again. Having driven up the share price to C$1.43, […]

By John Helmer, Moscow Iskander Makhmudov (right image) is cultured, charming, gracious, hospitable, polite, discreet – he has more of these qualities than his oligarch peers. But for Oleg Deripaska, his junior in the division of the Russian metals businesses that took place between 1995 and 2000, before the formation of Russian Aluminium (Rusal), here’s […]

By John Helmer, Moscow A year is a long time in Russian politics, and Vladimir Putin isn’t the same man he was a year ago. Then — on July 15, 2011 — he visited Magnitogorsk, presided at the official commissioning of the new automotive steel production line known as Mill-2000, and spent three hours answering […]